In Episode 6 of Be Valiant, Todd Merkow sits down with Dr. Bob Dranoff — former commissioner of the East Coast Conference in Division II, former athletic director at multiple levels of college athletics including Division I, Division II, Division III, and junior college, and current professor at St. John's University and St. Joseph's College. Bob reached out to Todd on LinkedIn the day Valiant Sports Society launched, and Todd knew from their very first conversation that this was a voice parents needed to hear. Few people alive have seen college athletics from as many angles — and fewer still have also sat in the stands as a sports parent, watching their own daughters navigate the same system they spent a career running.

Todd Merkow sits down with Jody Jackson — longtime Fox Sports Arizona broadcaster, current Diamondbacks reporter, and sports mom of two — for a conversation that moves easily between the press box and the bleachers, between the professional world of sports media and the deeply personal world of raising a pitcher and a quarterback in the competitive youth sports landscape of the Phoenix metro.

Todd Merkow sits down with Andrew Beinbrink — former collegiate baseball player at Arizona State University (College World Series finalist), six-year professional baseball player who reached Triple-A with both the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers, and CEO and founder of SportsForce (sportsforce.io), a recruiting advisory platform that has guided families through the college athletic recruiting process for over fifteen years. Andrew grew up in San Diego as a multi-sport athlete — soccer, baseball, football, basketball, tennis, golf, body surfing — and brings both the lived experience of a player who navigated the process and the data of an entrepreneur who has spent a decade and a half studying what actually works.